I watched him for a while, fascinated. Then, as he took not the slightest notice of me, my eyes began to wander round the room. It was hexagonal and, on every side save one, lined from the floor to the high ceiling with books. The furniture was all of black oak, as also were the bookshelves, and the carpet and hangings were of a deep olive-green. The mantelpiece and inlaid grate were of black marble, faintly relieved with gold, and within the polished bars of the grate a small fire was burning.
There was nothing cheerful about the apartment; on the contrary, it struck me as being, though magnificent, sombre and heavy, wrapped as it was in the gloom of a dismal twilight, which the flickering fire and the shaded lamp failed to pierce. From the high French windows, I could catch a glimpse of a long stretch of soddened lawn, beyond which everything was shrouded in the semi-obscurity of the fast-falling dusk, deepened by the grey, cloudy sky. But I chose, after my first glance around the room, to keep my eyes fixed upon the man who sat writing before me, the man in whom already I felt an interest so strong as to deaden all the curiosity which I might otherwise have felt as to my surroundings.
At last he seemed conscious of my presence. Lifting his eyes, to give them a momentary rest, he encountered my fixed gaze. For a moment he looked at me in a puzzled manner, as though wondering how I came there. Then his expression changed and, putting down his pen, he pushed his papers away from him.
“So you have come, Philip Morton,” he said.
To so self-evident a statement I could return no answer, save a brief affirmative. He seemed to expect nothing more, however.
“How old did you say you were?” he asked abruptly.
“Seventeen, sir.”
It was quite five minutes before he spoke again, during which time he sat with knitted brows and eyes fixed intently but absently upon me, deep in thought, and thought of which it seemed to me somehow that I must be the subject.
“Where were you born?”
“At the farm, sir—at least, I suppose so.”
It flashed into my mind at that moment that I had never heard the period of my earliest childhood spoken of either by my father or mother. But it was only a passing thought, dismissed almost as soon as conceived. Had we not always lived at the farm? Where else could I have been born?
“Do you know any of your mother’s relations?” Mr. Ravenor asked, taking no notice of the qualifying addition to my previous answer.
I shook my head. I had never seen or heard of any of them, and it was a circumstance upon which I had more than once pondered. But my mother’s reserved demeanour towards me of late years had checked many questions which I might otherwise have felt inclined to ask her. There was a brief silence, during which Mr. Ravenor sat with his face half turned away from me, resting it lightly upon the long, delicate fingers of his left hand.
“You are a little young for college,” he said presently, in a more matter-of-fact tone; “besides which, I doubt whether you are quite advanced enough. I have decided, therefore, to send you for two years to a clergyman in Lincolnshire who receives a few pupils, my own nephew among them. He is a friend of mine, and will give some shape to your studies. There are one or two things which I shall ask you to remember when you get there,” he went on.
“First, that this little arrangement between your mother, yourself, and me remains absolutely a secret among us. Also that you seek, or, at any rate, do not refuse, the friendship of my nephew, Cecil, Lord Silchester. From what I can learn I fear that he is behaving in a most unsatisfactory manner, and, as I know him to be weak-minded and easily led, his behaviour at present and his character in the future are to a great extent dependent upon the influence which his immediate companions may have over him. You understand me?”
I assented silently, for words at that moment were not at my command; my cheeks were flushed, and my heart was beating with pleasure at the confidence in me which Mr. Ravenor’s words implied. That moment was one of the sweetest of my life.
“I do not, of course, wish you to play the spy in any way upon my nephew,” Mr. Ravenor continued, “but I shall expect you to tell me the unbiassed truth should I at any time ask you any questions concerning him; and if you think, after you have been there some time and have had an opportunity of judging, that he would be likely to do better elsewhere, under stricter discipline than at Dr. Randall’s, I shall expect you to tell me so. In plain words, Philip Morton, I ask you to take an interest in and look after my nephew.”
“I will do my best, sir,” I answered fervently.
“A youthful Mentor, very!”
The words, accompanied by something closely resembling a sneer, came from neither Mr. Ravenor nor myself. Either a third person must have been in the room before my arrival and during the whole of our conversation, or he must have entered it since by some means unknown to me, for almost at my elbow, on the side remote from the door, stood the man who had broken in, without apology or explanation, upon our interview.
Both from the strange manner of his attire and on account of his personality, I could not repress a strong curiosity in the new-comer. He was above the average height, but of awkward and ungainly figure, its massiveness enhanced by the long black dressing-gown which was wrapped loosely around him. His hair and beard were of a deep reddish hue, the former partly concealed by a black silk skull-cap, and he wore thick blue spectacles, which by no means added to the attractiveness of his face; his features—those which were visible—were good, but their effect was completely spoilt by the disfiguring glasses and his curious complexion. There was an air of power about him difficult to analyse, but sufficiently apparent, which altogether redeemed him from coarseness, or even mediocrity; and his voice, too, was good. But my impressions concerning him were very mixed ones.
He was evidently someone of account in the household, for he stood on the hearthrug with his hands thrust into his loose pockets, completely at his ease, and without making any apology for his unceremonious appearance. When I first turned to look at him he was examining me with a cold, critical stare, which made me feel uncomfortable without knowing why.
“Who is the young gentleman?” he asked, turning to Mr. Ravenor. “Won’t you introduce me?”
Mr. Ravenor took up some papers lying on the table before him and began to sort them.
“It is Philip Morton, the son of the man who was murdered in Rothland Wood,” he answered quietly. “I am going to undertake his education.”
“Indeed! You’re becoming quite a philanthropist,” was the reply. “But why not send him to a public school at once?”
“Because a public school would be just the worst place for him,” Mr. Ravenor answered coldly. “His education has been good enough up to now, I dare say, but it has not been systematic. It wants shape and proportion, and Dr. Randall is just the man to see to that.”
The new-comer shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t believe in private tutors,” he remarked.
“That scarcely affects the question,” Mr. Ravenor answered, a little haughtily. “Are you ready for me, Marx?”
“I shall be presently. I had very nearly finished when the sound of voices tempted me out to see whom you had admitted into your august presence. You have not completed the introduction.”
Mr. Ravenor turned to me with a slight frown upon his fine forehead.
“Morton,” he said, “this is Mr. Marx, my private secretary and collaborator.”
We exchanged greetings, and I looked at him with revived interest. The man who was worthy to work with Mr. Ravenor must be a scholar indeed, and, on the whole, Mr. Marx looked it. I almost forgave him his supercilious speech and patronising manner.
“You have quite settled, then, to send this young man to Dr. Randall’s?” Mr. Marx said calmly.
“I have. There are one or two more matters which I have not yet mentioned to him, so I shall be glad to see you again in half an hour,” Mr. Ravenor remarked, glancing at his watch.
Mr. Marx nodded to me in a not unfriendly manner, and, lifting a curtain, which I had not noticed before, disappeared into a smaller apartment.
Mr. Ravenor waited until he was out of hearing and then turned towards me.
“I do not know whether it is necessary for me to mention it, as you may possibly not come into contact again,” he said slowly; “but in case you should do so, remember this: I wish you to have as little to do with Mr. Marx as possible. You—”
He broke off suddenly and I started and looked round, half amazed, half frightened. The continuous sound of an electric-bell, which seemed to come from within a few feet of me, was echoing through the room.
Mr. Ravenor sat like a man stunned by a sudden shock, while the shrill ringing grew more and more imperative. Then suddenly, when I least expected it, he spoke, and the fact that his calm, even tone betrayed not the slightest sign of agitation or anything approaching to it, was a great relief to me. After all, his silence might have meant indifference.
“Go over there,” he said, pointing to the corner of the room from which the sound came.
I did so and saw just before me what seemed to be a dark mahogany box let into the wall.
“Touch that knob,” he commanded, “and put your ear to the tube.”
I had scarcely done so when a quick, agitated voice, which I recognised as the voice of the man who had admitted me at the lodge gate, began speaking. I repeated his words to Mr. Ravenor.
“I am very sorry, sir; but while I stepped in here to announce her, Lady Silchester has driven through. She is alone.”
Mr. Ravenor made no sign of annoyance or surprise. I could not tell whether the news was a relief to him, or the reverse.
“Is there any answer, sir?” I inquired.
“Yes. Tell him to come to the steward for his wages in an hour’s time and be prepared to leave this evening.”
I hesitated and then repeated the words. Mr. Ravenor watched me keenly.
“You are thinking that I am a stern master,” he said abruptly.
It was exactly what had been passing through my mind and I confessed it. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I like to be obeyed implicitly, and to the letter,” he said. “If a quarter of the people who present themselves here to see me were allowed to pass through to my Castle, my leisure, which is of some value to me, would be continually broken in upon. Anderson has been careful hitherto, however, and this must be a lesson to him. You can tell him as you go out that I will give him one more chance.”
I rose, with my cap in hand, but he waved me back.
“I have a letter to write to your mother,” he said, drawing some notepaper towards him. “Wait a minute or two.”
I strolled over to the high French windows and looked out upon the grey twilight. I had scarcely stood there for a moment when the sound of horses’ feet and smoothly rolling wheels coming up the broad drive told me that Mr. Ravenor’s visitor was at hand, and immediately afterwards a small brougham flashed past the window and, describing a semi-circle, pulled up in front of the hall door. A footman leaped down from the box and several servants stood on the steps and respectfully saluted the lady who had alighted from the carriage. A moment or two later there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” answered Mr. Ravenor, without looking up, or even ceasing his writing, for I could hear the broad quill dashing away without a pause over the notepaper.
A servant threw open the door and announced “Lady Silchester,” and a tall woman, wrapped from head to foot in dark brown furs, swept past him and entered the room.
A single glance at the slim, majestic figure, and at the classical outline of her face, told me who she was and told me rightly. It was Mr. Ravenor’s sister.
Mr. Ravenor rose and, without putting his pen down, welcomed Lady Silchester with cold, frigid courtesy, which she seemed determined, however, not to notice.
“Quite an unexpected visit, this, isn’t it?” she exclaimed, sinking into an easy chair before the fire with a little shiver. “I never was so cold! These autumn mists are awful, and I’ve had a twelve-mile drive. What a dreary room you have made of this!” she added, looking round with a little shrug of her shoulders and putting her hands farther into her muff. “How can you sit here in this ghostly light with only one lamp—and such a fire, too?”
He smiled grimly, but it was not a smile which heralded any increase of geniality in his manner.
“I am not in the habit of receiving ladies here,” he remarked, “and I did not expect you. Where have you come from? I thought you were in Rome.”
She shook her head.
“I wish we were. We came back last week and I went straight down to the Cedars—Tom’s place at Melton, you know. I don’t think I’ve been warm since I landed in England. Just now I’m nearly frozen to death.”
“I think you would find one of the rooms in the other wing more comfortable,” he said, after a short pause; “besides which I am engaged at present. You dine here, of course?”
“By all means,” she answered. “You wouldn’t send me back to Melton dinnerless, would you, even if I have come without an invitation? I am dying for a cup of tea.”
“Mrs. Ross shall send you anything you want,” he said. “I will ring for her.”
She rose and shook out her skirts. Her eyes fell upon me.
“You have a visitor,” she remarked. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
She looked at me fixedly as I moved a few steps forward out of the deep shadows which hung about the further end of the apartment. Then she turned from me to Mr. Ravenor, who was holding open the door for her. He met her gaze steadily, with a calm, inquiring look in his deep eyes, as though wondering why she lingered.
“Won’t you introduce your visitor?” she asked slowly.
He appeared wishful for her to go, yet resigned.
“Certainly,” he answered, “if you wish it. Cecilia, let me present to you Mr. Philip Morton, the son of a former neighbour of mine. You may be interested to hear that Mr. Morton is about to complete his education with Dr. Randall. Morton, this is my sister, Lady Silchester.”
Lady Silchester held up a pair of gold eye-glasses and looked at me steadily. I was not used to ladies, but Lady Silchester’s manner did not please me, and, after a very slight bow, I drew myself up and returned her gaze without flinching. She turned abruptly away.
“Yes, I am interested—a little surprised,” she said, in a peculiar tone. “Let me congratulate you, my dear brother, on——”
“Did I understand you to say that you would be ready in a quarter of an hour, Cecilia?” he interrupted calmly. “Permit me to order your horses to be put up.” And he moved across the room towards the bell and rang it.
She hesitated, bit her lip, and turned towards the door without another word. A servant stood upon the threshold, summoned by the bell.
“Let Mrs. Ross attend Lady Silchester at once,” Mr. Ravenor ordered. “Her ladyship will take tea in her room, and will dine with me in the library at half-past eight.”
“Very good, sir.”
The door was closed and we were alone again. Mr. Ravenor returned to his letter, with his lips slightly parted in a quiet smile. I stood still, hot and uncomfortable, wondering in what possible manner I could have offended Lady Silchester. The meaning of the little scene which had just taken place was beyond my comprehension. But I knew that it had a meaning, and that I was somehow concerned in it.
The letter which Mr. Ravenor had been writing to my mother was finished and sealed at last. Then he leaned back in his chair and looked steadily at me.
“I shall not see you again before you go, Philip Morton,” he said, “so I wish to impress upon you once more what I said to you about my nephew, who is Lady Silchester’s son, by-the-bye. I know that he is going on badly, but I wish to know how badly. Unfortunately, he has no father, and, from what I can remember of him, I should imagine that he is quite easily led, and would be very amenable to the influence of a stronger mind. If yours should be that mind—and I do not see why it should not—it will be well for him. That delightfully Utopian optimism of yours is, at any rate, healthy,” he added dryly.
I felt my cheeks burn and would have spoken, but Mr. Ravenor checked me.
“Let there be no misunderstanding between us,” he said. “I desire no gratitude from you and I deserve none. What I am doing I am doing for my own gratification—perhaps for my own ultimate advantage. That you are a gainer by it is purely a matter of chance. The whim might just as well have been the other way. I might have taken a fancy to have you turned out of the place and, if so, I would have done it. On the whole, it is I who should be grateful to you for not baulking me in my scheme and for letting me have my own way. So understand, please, after this explanation, that I shall look upon any expression of gratitude from you as a glaring mark of imbecility, apart from which it will annoy me exceedingly.”
I listened in silence. What could one reply to such a strange way of putting a case? Mr. Ravenor’s manner forbade any doubt as to his seriousness and I could only respect his wishes.
“As you won’t let me thank you, sir, I think I’d better go,” I said bluntly. “I’m sure to forget if I stay here much longer.”
“A good discipline for you to stay, then,” he answered.
Again the tinkle of the telephone bell rang out from the corner and interrupted his speech. Mr. Ravenor motioned me towards it.
“Go and hear what it is and repeat it to me,” he said.
I put my ear to the tube and repeated the words as they came:
“A man desires to see you, sir, but refuses to give his name. I have told him that it is quite useless my communicating with you without it; but he is persistent and refuses to go away. He is respectably dressed, but rather rough-looking.”
Mr. Ravenor shrugged his shoulders and took up his pen, as though about to resume his writing.
“Tell him to go to the deuce!” he said briefly.
I repeated the message faithfully, but its recipient was evidently not satisfied. In less than a minute the bell sounded again.
“His name is Richards, sir—or, rather, he says he is known to you by that name—and he is very emphatic about seeing you—and, begging your pardon, sir, a little insolent. He says that his business is of the utmost importance.”
I repeated the message and stood as though turned to stone. Was my fancy playing tricks with me in the dimly-lit room, or had Mr. Ravenor’s face really become ghastly and livid, like the face of a man who sees the phantom shadows of a hideous nightmare passing before his fixed gaze? I closed my eyes for a moment’s relief and looked again. Surely it had been fancy! Mr. Ravenor was writing with only a slight frown upon his calm, serene face.
“Let Mr. Richards—or whatever the fellow’s name is—be given to understand that I distinctly refuse to see him,” he said quietly. “If he has any business with me he can write.”
I repeated this and then took up my cap to go. Mr. Ravenor put down his pen and walked with me to the door. I had expected that he would have offered me his hand, but he did not. He nodded, kindly enough and held the door open while I passed out. So I went.
As I walked across the great hall on my way out I came face to face with Lady Silchester, who was thoughtfully contemplating one of a long line of oil-paintings dark with age, yet vivid still with the marvellous colouring of an old master. To my surprise she stopped me.
“Are you a judge of pictures, Mr. Morton?” she asked. “I was wondering whether that was a genuine Reynolds.” And she pointed to the picture which she had been examining.
I shook my head, briefly acknowledging that I knew nothing whatever about them. I was quite conscious at the time that the question was only a feint. What was a farmer’s son likely to know of the old masters?
“Ah, never mind!” she remarked, shutting up her eyeglasses with a snap. “I can ask Mr. Ravenor this evening. I thought, perhaps, that as you were here so often he might have talked to you about them. I know that he is very proud of his pictures.”
“Had I been here often he might have done so,” I answered. “As it happens, however, this is my first visit to Ravenor Castle.”
“Indeed? And yet Mr. Ravenor seems to take a great interest in you. Why?”
I hesitated and wished that I could get away; but Lady Silchester was standing immediately in front of me.
“Your ladyship will pardon me,” I said, “but might not your question be better addressed to Mr. Ravenor?”
She bit her lip and moved haughtily to one side. I made a movement as though to pass her, but she turned suddenly and prevented me.
“Mr. Morton,” she said, a little nervously, “my brother said that you were going to Dr. Randall’s, I believe?”
I admitted that such was the fact.
“I daresay you know that my son is there,” she continued, “and I am afraid he’s not behaving exactly as he should. Of course, we don’t hear anything definite; but Cecil is very good-natured, easily led into anything, and I am a little doubtful about his companions there. Now, Mr. Morton, you’re not much more than a boy yourself, of course; but you don’t look as though you would care for the sort of thing that I’m afraid Cecil gets led into. I do wish that you and he could be friends, and that—that—”
She broke off, as though expecting me to say something, and I felt a little awkward.
“It’s very kind of you to think so well of me, when you don’t know anything about me,” I said, twirling my cap in my hands; “but you forget that I am only a farmer’s son, and perhaps your son would not care to be friends with me.”
“My son, whatever his faults may be, has all the instincts of a gentleman,” Lady Silchester answered proudly; “and if he liked you for yourself, it would make no difference, even if you were a tradesman’s son. Promise me that, if you have the opportunity, you will do what you can?”
“Oh, yes; I’ll promise that, with pleasure!” I assured her.
Lady Silchester smiled, and while the smile lasted I thought that I had never seen a more beautiful woman. Then she held out a delicate little hand, sparkling with rings, and placed it in mine, which in those days was as brown as a berry and not very soft.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Morton.”
She looked up at me quite kindly for a moment. Then suddenly her manner completely—changed. She withdrew her eyes from my face, with a slight flush in her cheeks, and turned abruptly away.
“Good evening, Mr. Morton. I am much obliged to you for your promise,” she said, in a colder tone.
I drew myself up, unconscious of having said or done anything which could possibly offend her, and feeling boyishly hurt at her change of manner.
“Good evening, Lady Silchester,” I answered, with all the dignity I could command. Then I turned away and left the Castle.
I walked down the broad avenue slowly, casting many glances behind me at the vast, gloomy pile, around which the late evening mists were rising from the damp ground. Many lights were twinkling from the upper windows and from the east wing, where the servants’ quarters were situated, but the lower part of the building lay in a deep obscurity, unilluminated, save by one faint light from Mr. Ravenor’s study. There seemed something unnatural, almost ghostly, about the place, which chilled while it fascinated me.
What was that? I stood suddenly still in the middle of the drive and listened. A faint, muffled cry, which seemed to me at first to be a human cry, had broken the deep evening stillness. I held my breath and remained quite motionless, with strained hearing. There was no repetition of it, no other sound. I was puzzled; more than half inclined to be alarmed. It might have been the crying of a hare, or the squealing of a rabbit caught by a stoat. But my first impression had been a strong one, improbable though it seemed. Poachers, however daring, would scarcely be likely to invade the closely-guarded inner grounds, where the preserves were fewer and the risk of capture far greater than outside the park. Besides, there had been no discharge of firearms, no commotion, no loud cries; only that one muffled, despairing moan. What could it mean?
A steep ascent lay before me. After a moment’s hesitation I hurried forward and did not pause until I reached the summit and had clear view around through the hazy twilight.
Far away below me—for Ravenor Castle stood on the highest point in the country—a dull-red glow in the sky, and many twinkling lights stretched far and wide, marked the place where a great town lay. On my right hand was a smooth stretch of green turf, dotted all over with thickly growing spreading oak trees. On the left was a straggling plantation, bounded by a low greystone wall, which sloped down gradually to one of the bracken-covered, disused slate-quarries, with which the neighbourhood abounded.
Breathless, I stood still and looked searchingly around. Save in the immediate vicinity, the fast falling night had blotted out the view, reducing fields, woods, and rocks to one blurred chaotic mass. But where my eye could pierce the darkness I could see no sign of any moving object. By degrees my apprehension grew less strong. The cry, if it had not been wholly a trick of the imagination, must have been the cry of some animal. I drew a long breath of relief and moved forward again.
Immediately in front of me the avenue curved through a small plantation of fir trees, which, growing thick and black on either side, made it appear almost as though I were confronted with a tunnel; around its mouth the darkness was intense, but my eyesight, always good, had by this time become quite accustomed to the uncertain light, and just as I was entering it I fancied that I could see something moving only a few yards in front of me. I stopped short at once and waited, peering forwards into the gloom with straining eyes and beating heart. My suspense, though keen, was not of long duration, for almost immediately the dark shape resolved itself into the figure of a man moving swiftly towards me.
My first impulse was, I am afraid, to turn and run for it, my next to give the advancing figure as wide a berth as possible. With that idea I stepped swiftly on one side and leaned right back against the ring fence which bordered the drive. But I was too late, or too clumsy in my movements, to escape notice. With a quick, startled exclamation, the man whom I had nearly run into stopped and, just at that moment the moon, which had been struggling up from behind a thick mass of angry clouds, shone feebly out and showed me the white, scared face of Mr. Ravenor’s secretary.
“Good heavens!”
It seemed to me as though the ejaculation was hurled out from those trembling lips. Then, with a sudden start, he recovered himself, and so changed was his manner that I could almost have fancied that his first emotion of terror had been imagination on my part.
“Am I so formidable that you should leap out of my way as though you had seen a ghost?” he said, with a short laugh. “Come, come; a young man of your size should have more pluck than that.”
I felt rather ashamed of myself, but I answered him as carelessly as possible.
“I don’t think I was any more startled than you were. We came upon one another suddenly, and it’s a very dark night.”
“Dark! Dark is not the word. This part of the drive is a veritable Hades.”
“By-the-bye, Mr. Marx,” I remarked, “I fancied that I heard a cry a few min——”
“A cry! What sort of a cry?” he interrupted sharply, in an altered tone.
“Well, it sounded to me very much like the moan of a man in pain,” I explained, looking half fearfully around. “Of course, it might have been a hare, but it was wonderfully like a human voice. Listen! Can’t you hear something now?” I cried, laying my hand upon his arm.
We stood close together in silence, listening intently. A faint wind had sprung up, and was sighing mournfully through the trees, which were soaked and weighed down by the heavy rain. Drip, drip, drip. At every sigh of the breeze a little shower of rain-drops fell pattering on to the soddened leaves and the melancholy music was resumed.
It was altogether very depressing and I was palpably shivering.
“I can hear nothing,” he said, with chattering teeth. “It must have been your fancy, or a hare squealing, perhaps.”
“I suppose so,” I admitted, glad enough to be forced into this conclusion.
“I wouldn’t say anything about it at the lodge,” he remarked, preparing to depart. “Anderson is as nervous as a cat already.”
“All right, I won’t. Good night.”
“You’re not frightened, are you?” he asked. “If you like, I’ll walk down to the lodge with you.”
“Not in the least, thanks,” I answered, a little indignantly. “I thought that noise was queer, that’s all. Good night.”
I walked swiftly away, listening all the time, but hearing no unusual sound. In a few minutes I reached the gates and found Anderson waiting about outside. He let me through at once.
“May I go in here for a minute?” I asked, pointing to the room in which I had been kept waiting on my way up to the Castle. “I have a message to give you from Mr. Ravenor.”
“Certainly, sir,” he answered, opening the door. I stepped inside, half expecting to see the man whom Mr. Ravenor had refused to receive; but it was quite empty.
“So Mr. Richards has decided not to wait, after all?” I remarked, looking round. “He was wise. I’m sure Mr. Ravenor wouldn’t have seen him.”
“Yes, sir,” the man answered; “he slipped out without leaving any message or anything, while I had gone across the way for some coal. I was a bit taken aback when I returned and found the place empty, for he’d been swearing ever so a minute or two before that he’d see Mr. Ravenor, or stop here for ever.”
“He can’t have gone on up to the Castle, can he?” I asked, looking around.
The man shook his head confidently.
“Impossible, sir! The gates were locked and the keys in my pocket, and there are no windows to this room, you see, on the Castle side.”
“But there is a door,” I said, pointing to the upper end of the apartment.
“Go and look at it, sir,” Anderson answered, smiling.
I did so and examined it closely. There were no bolts, but it was fastened with a particularly strong patent lock.
“Who keeps the key?” I inquired.
“Mr. Ravenor, sir. I haven’t got one at all. You were saying something about a message?”
“Yes. Mr. Ravenor was annoyed with you for letting Lady Silchester through, but he has decided to overlook it this time. You need not go up to the Castle for your money.”
The man was evidently pleased.
“I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, sir,” he said warmly. “That’s good news and no mistake. It isn’t a place that one would care to lose.”
“Well, good night, Anderson. Oh, I say,” I added, turning back on a sudden impulse, “how long is it since Mr. Marx was here?”
Anderson looked puzzled.
“Mr. Marx, sir! Why, I haven’t seen him all day!”
“What!” I exclaimed.
“I haven’t seen him all day. He hasn’t been here,” the man repeated.
I stood still, breathless, full of swiftly rising but vague suspicions.
“Not seen him to-day! Why, I met him in the avenue just now,” I declared.
“I daresay, sir,” the man remarked quietly. “He often walks down this way. In fact, he does most evenings before dinner. Queer sort he is, and no mistake.”
The man’s words changed the current of my thoughts, and my half-conceived suspicions faded away almost before they had gathered shape. I made some trifling remark and started homewards.
It was late when I reached home and, from the darkness in all the windows, I concluded that my mother and the one country domestic who comprised our little household had already retired. My hand was raised to rap at the closed door, when it occurred to me that I might just as well effect an entrance without disturbing anyone. Our sitting-room window opened on to the front garden in which I stood and was seldom fastened, so I stole softly over the sodden grass and pressed the sash upwards. It yielded easily to my touch and, gently raising myself on to the low stone window-sill, I vaulted into the room.
At first I thought it was, as I had expected to find it, empty. But it was not so. Through the open window by which I had just entered the moonlight was streaming in, casting long, fantastic rays upon the well-worn carpet and across the quaint, old-fashioned furniture and on the white tablecloth, on which my homely evening meal had been left prepared. But my eyes never rested for a moment on any of these familiar objects, scarcely even noticed them, for another and a stranger sight held me spellbound. At the farther end of the room, where the shadows hung darkest and the moonbeams but feebly penetrated, was the kneeling figure of a woman.
Her perfectly black dress threw the ghastly hue of her strained, wild face into startling prominence, and her slender arms were stretched passionately upwards in a gesture full of intense dramatic pathos. Her eyes were fixed upon a small ebony crucifix which hung against the wall, and the words were bursting from her white, trembling lips, but whether of prayer or confession, I could not, or, rather, would not, hear, for I closed my eyes and the sound of her voice reached me only in an indistinct moan. It was a sight which has lived in my memory and will never fade.
Since that awful night in Rothland Wood, my mother’s behaviour towards me had been a source of constant and painful wonder. She had become an enigma, and an enigma which I somehow felt that it would be well for me not to attempt to solve.
But even at the times when my loveless surroundings and her coldness had plunged me into the lowest depths of depression, it had never been an altogether hopeless state, for somehow I had always felt that her coldness was not the coldness of indifference, but rather an effort of will, and that a time would come when she would cast it off and be to me again the mother of my earlier recollections. But the change was long in coming.
She was a devout Roman Catholic—a religion in which I had not been brought up—and in all weathers and at all times of the year, she paid long and frequent visits to the monastery chapel over the hills. But to see her as she was now was a revelation to me. I had seen her pray before, but never like this. She had always seemed to me more of a martyr than a sinner and her prayers more the prayers of reverent devotion than of passionate supplication. But her attitude at this moment, her wild, haggard face, and imploring eyes, were full of revelation to me. Another possible explanation of her lonely, joyless life and deep religious devotion flashed in upon me. Might it not be the dreary expiation, the hard penance of her church meted out for sin?
Half fearing to disturb her, I remained for a brief while silent, but, as the minutes went on, the sight of her agony was too much for me and I cried out to her:
“Mother, I am here. I did not know that you were up! I came in through the window!”
At the first sound of my appealing tones her face changed, as though frozen suddenly from passionate expressiveness to cold marble. Slowly she rose to her feet and confronted me.
“Mother, are you in trouble?” I said softly, moving nearer to her; “cannot I share your sorrow? Cannot I comfort you? Why am I shut out of your life so? Tell me this great trouble of yours and let me share it.”
For many years I had longed to say these words to her, but the cold impressiveness of her manner had checked them often upon my lips and thrust them back to my aching heart. Now, when a great sorrow filled her face with a softer light and loosened for a moment its hard, rigid lines, I dared to yield to the impulse which I had so often felt—and, alas! in vain—in vain!
Keener agony, deeper disappointment, I have never felt. Coldness and indifference had been hard to bear, but what came now was worse. She shrank back from me—shrank back, with her hands outstretched towards me and her head averted.
“Philip, I did not know that you were here. I cannot talk to you now. Go to your room. To-morrow—to-morrow!”
Her voice died away, but her sudden weakness inspired me with no hope, for it was a physical weakness only. There were no signs of softening in her face, no answering tenderness in her tones. So what could I do but go?
It was eleven o’clock on the following morning. I had been reading in the garden for some time, and was just thinking of starting for a walk, when a dogcart from the Castle stopped at the gate, and Mr. Ravenor’s servant—the man who had conducted me from the lodge to the Castle—was shown into the house. I went to him at once and he handed me a note.
“Mr. Ravenor has sent you this, sir,” he said respectfully.
I tore it open and read (there was no orthodox commencement):
“Before going to Dr. Randall’s there are a few things which you are not likely to have which you will find necessary. Remember that it is part of the education which I intend for you that you should associate with the other pupils on equal terms. Therefore, be so good as to go into Torchester with Reynolds and place yourself entirely in his hands. He has my full instructions.—R.”
I folded the note up and put it into my pocket.
“Am I to come with you now?” I asked.
“If you please, sir.”
I went upstairs to get ready and in a few minutes was prepared to start. The groom offered me the reins, but I declined them and mounted instead to the vacant seat by his side, which Reynolds had silently relinquished to me.
Torchester was scarcely a dozen miles from the farm, but, nevertheless, this was my first visit to it. Many a time I had looked down from Beacon Hill upon the wide-spreading, dirty-coloured cloud of smoke from its tall factory chimneys, which seemed like a marring blot upon the fair, peaceful stretch of country around, and by night at the dull red glow in the sky and the myriads of twinkling lights which showed me where it stood. But neither by day nor night had the scene been an attractive one for me. I had felt no curiosity to enter it. I had never even cared to figure to myself what it would be like.
So now, for the first time in my life, I found myself driving through the streets of a large manufacturing town. It was the dinner-hour and on all sides the factories were disgorging streams of unhealthy-looking men and women and even children. The tramcars and omnibuses were crowded, the busy streets were lined with swiftly rolling carriages, smart-looking men, and gaily-dressed girls and women. Within a few yards I saw types of men and women so different that it seemed impossible that they could be of the same species.
“This is the ‘Bell,’ sir, where we generally put up,” remarked Reynolds, at my elbow. “You will have some lunch, sir, before we go into the town?”
I shook my head, but he was quietly though respectfully insistent. So I let him have his way and allowed myself to be piloted into a long, dark coffee-room, where my orders, considerably augmented by Reynolds in transit, were received by a waiter whom we discovered fast asleep in an easy-chair, and who seemed very much surprised to see us.